Coffee With Dragons

Harder Than It Had To Be

The battery in my van died last week. I was getting ready to go to a yoga class and it wouldn’t start. Of course it was parked in the front spot in the garage, so even jumping the battery was bound to be a challenge.

Saturday, while we were running errands, we bought a new battery and went home to install it. Unfortunately, the battery sits under a bar and the fuse box, and our socket set is downstate.

Plan B: We pushed the van out of the garage, intending to push it with Eric’s car the half block to the mechanic’s shop. Easy peasy, or it would have been if it hadn’t been for the ice and snow in the alley we back onto. We got the van stuck on an ice bump and couldn’t get it back over. The ice cut the traction, so Eric couldn’t even move it with his car. Where the heck is the football team from the high school up the road when you need them?

Plan C: Eric drove around to jump it. Too bad the battery was so dead the starter wouldn’t even click.

Plan D: We called a tow truck, and were told it would be an hour and change before they arrived. It came sooner than expected, and he had a fancy pants battery jumper. Of course, it started right up. *Insert unkind name here* At that point, I came upstairs to get lunch and let Eric deal with getting the battery changed.

There are up-sides. It didn’t die in a rest area, in the snow, somewhere on I-55 when I was driving back and forth moving stuff. It also didn’t wait for Eric to go out of town. Timing-wise, it was pretty perfect, even if it did mean sitting outside in the cold to wait for the tow truck.